Old English Bibles on DVDrom (AV1611, Tyndale, Matthews, Coverdale)
This Day in History: The Coverdale Bible was printed on this day in 1535. It was compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete Modern English translation of the Bible (not just the Old Testament or New Testament), and the first complete printed translation into English. Before the King James Bible in 1611 the English speaking world had other Bibles as well, such as the Matthews Bible, the Taverner's Bible (more correctly called "The Most Sacred Bible whiche is the holy scripture, conteyning the old and new testament, translated into English, and newly recognized with great diligence after most faythful exemplars" by Rychard Taverner), the Great Bible (named for its size), the Bishops’ Bible and the Catholic Douay/Rheims Bible. The Bible that was first brought to America on the Mayflower was the Geneva Bible. All English translations of the Bible printed in the sixteenth century included a section or appendix for Apocryphal books (which the Catholics call the Deuterocanonical books) which usually include Baruch, the Prayer of Manasseh, the books of the Maccabees, 1 Esdras & 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the Rest of Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach) the 151st Psalm etc.
These older Bibles were based on late manuscripts of the Greek, and some Bible translators simply translated from the Latin or the German. In the 1800's there were Bible translations that sought to correct that by using older newly found manuscripts, and these included official revisions of the King James (Authorized) Bible, such as the English Revised Version (1881) and the American Standard Version (1901). The public never really embraced these Bibles, still preferring the old King James version.
See also: The History of the English Bible, 125 PDF Books on DVDrom
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